Because You Could Not Leave, You Stayed

There was that one moment when you could not escape, because too young, there was nowhere to go. Followed by the first dance you had with a girlfriend, your feet unfaithful and inept and at the worst possible time – you then wanting to melt into the wall, be at one with a sconce, or twirl concisely with a ceiling fan. But because you were not able to be or do any of those things, you instead succumbed to the terror of that too long felt moment. Exposed, like an internet snapshot of a viral fool.

At the trailer park, or the bowling alley, or was it outside in the parking lot of a skating ring – being beat or giving a beating – tongue lashed to the corner of your mouth between perspiring lips, eyes hollow shaped pits, your mind a chaotic jumble of phrases, all lost, all forgotten. As if that moment represented the entirety of what life had to offer; that your desperation was permanent; a movie unwinding from its reel; the projector still running, the guts of your story spilling to the floor like an intestine of red ribbon.

A dove attends someone else’s disaster, a policeman answers another person’s 911, and a cab driver glides to a curb and removes a pedestrian from a nightmare neighborhood back home to safety, a warm shower and the comfort of couches. You though because of some illogical decision about fate become attached to wine and stand in the rain, wet forever; thinking, even if you could have found love, or had been lucky enough to have had a sense of belonging, that you still wouldn’t believe a time might come to laze with other lifeguards in the sun.